'One of the Native Cavalry in the Nawaab's Service', 1788 (c)

Watercolour on European paper by a Company artist, 1788 (c).

The experience of fighting the skilled horsemen of the Marathas in the late 18th and early 19th centuries taught the East India Company that it needed better cavalry. Until 1796 there were only three regiments of Bengal Native cavalry and the Company armies relied on cavalry borrowed from local rulers. This painting shows a trooper serving a local nawab (ruler).